Death Comes to us All
by UntangleMeNot
Summary: Harry is faced with an army and makes the only descision left to him, but things don't go according to plan. Then again, plans rarely survive their first encounter with life. Alternate Timeline/Universe with slight HP/HG


Disclaimer: Characters, places, etc., all belong to J. K. Rowling. If it looks familiar, it's not mine. The story and plot, however, are mine. :)

Please remember to read and **review**!

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**Prelude**

"We know you're in there Potter! You can't hide the mudblood forever…" drawled a vicious male voice, muffled slightly by the half broken wooden door.

Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, surveyed the state of their hastily warded temporary safe haven, and then himself and the only other occupant. The old, dilapidated and decayed wooden shed couldn't have held up in a light breeze…And he and his last living ally and best friend Hermione Granger felt and looked the same.

"This pathetic, weak, box with it's patched and frayed wards will be nothing to the Dark Lord, Potter…" drawled the cool voice of one Draco Malfoy, as he and the other death eaters sent curses and hexes at their last defense, purely to torment them. "You'd be better off to just come out now, rather than prolonging the inevitable. You have lost, the Dark Lord has won. You and the mudblood are the last on your side; a dead, extinct breed of fools and traitors. There is no way out; you know we have you surrounded."

Sure enough, when Harry looked out of the spy hole he noted that the entire bulk of Voldemort's army had been sent out. There was nothing less than every dark creature and wizard that could be rounded up outside and around the little shack. Sighing tiredly, wiping blood from his eyes, he walked back to Hermione and knelt down.

"He's right, the git." whispered Harry in a low, soft voice.

"We've known for months this was coming. For years even. Ever since Ron…" Hermione trailed off, and then shook her head. "Well…We've nothing left to lose now. This was our last plan, we'll have to hope that through us, when we are gone, others might see the chance to do good and take it." She let out a soft, tired, sigh and whispered "But I wish we didn't have to die. I don't want to die…"

Harry nodded wearily. "Do you remember what Lupin once said to us? About death." He asked, noting with approval that, battered and bloody as she was, as heart sick from the loss of Ron and all that they had loved, she had the same look of grim determination that he had.

"Yes." She replied softly, her eyes shining though she shed no tears. The time for tears was long past. "Death comes to us all. In the end, the only choice we really have is in deciding, when the time comes, how we will die… And in how we spent our lives. Will we choose to breathe the breath of life, of hope, to bring light back into the darkness; or will we wait, and let the darkness consume us too." She shook, just a little, as she finished the well remembered speech given to them on the death bed of one of their greatest mentors.

Harry stood, and offered her his hand, as the army outside their splintering door began to chant jeers at them, heckling them, and their hastily made wards began to disintegrate under the pressure. "I don't know about you," he said calmly, quietly, "But I think I hear the coliseum calling to it's last gladiators. We can't avoid the end, so I say…" he turned to the door, wand at the ready with Hermione, his last and only reason to live, mirroring him at his side. "**TE MORTUI SALUTAS!!**" He yelled, his voice booming out, magically enhanced as they burst from the shack, blowing it out towards the sea of death eaters and dark supporters that had moved to swallow them.

Their sudden and violent emergence from the shack had taken Malfoy and the army by surprise. They never had gotten used to how completely hardheaded and blunt Harry's plans tended to be, which suited him just fine. He and Hermione stepped out into the settling dust, back to back, and before anyone could think to react, they made their stand. The dark army swarmed them, but they had long since learned to show no mercy. They shot to kill and maim, and they had learned from the most ruthless of the dark side. Their wands and arms flashed and sliced in near unison, for awhile it seemed like they could hold their own, as the bodies of dark wizards and creatures alike began to pile up at their feet. The vicious scars along Harry's arms and torso, along with sweat mingled blood, shone eerily in the light of the chaotic mash of curses and hexes and other spells slung in every direction. Every now and again one of them would dodge and they would swap sides…But it was a losing battle. They were both losing steam quickly, and they hadn't been in the best of conditions before taking their stand. They knew it would be over all too soon, but they only needed to hang on just a little longer…

"Ahh…Yes, yes, making your last stand, dear Harry?" A high, cold voice spoke, heard above the din and chaos of the battle field, and almost simultaneously the spells ceased. Voldemort stalked through the ranks of his army to look at the small mountain of dead that surrounded the two panting people at the center of the ring. "How futile. Although...It does appear that you had some fight left in you. You are, however, at the end." And the demon smiled at them, the face of death itself. Harry subtly squeezed Hermione's hand as they caught their breath before the curtain was drawn on their final act.

"We may lose here today, Tom, but someday you will fall, as all tyrants do in the end." Harry said as he and Hermione both straightened up. He faced down the man who had ruined his life and taken everything from him, not with fear, not with anger, but with the calm, curious certainty of a man who knows his fate, accepts it, and maybe even wishes for it. Slowly, deliberately, Harry raised his wand in perfect time with Hermione, and bowed, in the fashion taught to him in a long ago Wizard's dueling class at Hogwarts. His scarred face set in a neutral, accepting mask as he prepared for what was to come.

"Empty sentiments, Harry, mean nothing to me." He said, raising his wand in a lazy salute. "But you shall soon find out for yourself. At long last, the death of 'The-Boy-Who-Lived'." the cold, sneering, voice said, mockingly mentioning his heroic title, before backing away. "Kill them." He said simply, and the sea of Voldemort's supporters surged and over took them.

Without words, without thought, Hermione and Harry synchronized their movements and cast their final spells. Hermione rapidly shot off killing curses to take out the nearest death eaters, managing to divert attention for a crucial moment before they swarmed her, and Harry brought his arm in an arch and cast his spell. A spell so old and dangerous Hermione herself could barely make it out. It was their last defiant act. Harry raised his wand high and screamed "**AMOR FIDELIS SPIRITUS!!**"

At once the scene slowed everyone caught in the spell, as particle by particle, bit by bit, everything that Harry was; his magic, his mind, his soul, his heart and his body; were changed, augmented, and expanded until he felt as though he were stretching to encompass all the world and all of time. With a sound so loud and chaotic it shook the very earth under their feet, time returned to normal, right on the precipice of an explosion to rival not one but two muggle nukes. Harry was swallowed up in a bright, white hot light as everything was decimated. The army, the ground, everything was simply reduced to nothing.

* * *

Harry blinked slowly, opening his eyes unsteadily, as bright lights and city sounds invaded his senses. He cursed quietly as he tried to pummel his exhausted brain into working. Something had gone wrong…Or else the afterlife looked suspiciously like down town London. Sitting up slowly, he worked his jaw and blinked blearily around. By the looks of it, it was about midday, and he had a splitting head ache. The blood had dried on his skin, making it feel tight. It crumbled off of him as he moved and stretched, clearly he had been laying there for quite some time.

Getting to his feet, he took a moment to check himself over. He had his wand and everything seemed to be intact. Looking in the dusty glass of a window, he noted that he still looked as battered and scarred as he remembered. He had, apparently, been lying knocked out in an alley. How he had managed to get there he did not know. With a note of panic, he began frantically looking around for Hermione, but knew in his heart that he would not find her. His chest constricted with the now achingly familiar tightness of loss and mourning. He had lost even her now. He was alone.

Shaking himself a little, he looked up and thought. Something had clearly gone wrong with his spell, which she had said might happen. Still, he did remember seeing the bulk of Voldemort's army go up right along with him and Hermione, so it was not a total loss. Not that he had wanted or intended to live through any of it, the spell had been chosen specifically for that scenario by him because he had known, if it had come to something so drastic, that he would have lost everything and would no longer have a reason to continue living. It was a desperate move by a man who had nothing left to lose. Sighing, he took himself out into the brightly lit street, looking around to see where, exactly, he was.

His appearance elicited disapproving mutters and stares from those he passed, but he supposed it was only to be expected. As he walked, he formed plans. It was the only way to keep his mind off of the crushing disappointment and the realization of just how badly he hadn't wanted to survive the encounter. He needed to figure out what had gone wrong, of course, but that was secondary. There was a better than good chance that Voldemort had escaped the explosion that had taken his enemies and army, and he would, of course, have had a skeleton army kept from the war to serve his other interests and plans. They were also dangerous in their own right, and needed to be rounded up before he could do anything else.

One by one, Harry went through the old, familiar pattern of creating and discarding plans, listing things that needed doing. For a time, he walked unseeingly, his feet carrying him through muggle London, as he reverted to the thought processes that were so much a part of him now. He lived based on actions, survival. Find shelter, find food, and find rest. Then find help, amass more resistance, and though he wanted nothing more than to give up and simply give in, he would take up the fight again and again until he was sure that Voldemort and his followers were dead. It was a never ending litany in his head, a pattern of fight and flight that never seemed to end, and it had become second nature, almost instinct, now. It no longer mattered if he were alone. All that mattered now was to find a way to end it, or die trying.

Looking around himself, he noticed things were…wrong. There were stores in places there hadn't been in the London he knew and some that were completely different. Shaking his head, he picked up a muggle newspaper from the top of a trash can as he passed, looking for news, as Voldemort had blown the wizarding world right into the public muggle eye when he had escalated the wars. He frowned, confused for a moment before his eyes flickered to the date. Then he did a double take. He had gone back into the past. To be exact, he had gone back to nearly three months before Voldemort was due to kill his parents and vanish from the world.

Harry blinked in surprise for a moment, before smiling slowly. "So…" He said to himself, eliciting more odd looks, "A chance to stop things from going to hell hunh. Well, it probably couldn't turn out any worse than it did before…" and with that, he disaparated.

In the following three months he found and destroyed all of voldemort's Horcruxes, having already found them before, it wasn't all that hard. He wished he had had more time, to go and destroy the venues of return that Voldemort had used to resurrect himself the first time, but he only had time to be rid of one, and so he chose to destroy the bones of Voldemort's father, as they were the easiest to get to. He kept moving, from one goal to the other, biding his time until the day finally arrived when Voldemort was supposed to have come to kill him and his family. Silently, he made his way to Godrick's Hollow, pleased to see that he was, in fact, able to find it. Whatever magic was keeping them safe through the secret keeper, who had betrayed them to Voldemort, was apparently not going to work against him, being one of those protected by it.

He crept to the side of the little cottage, and waited. When he saw Voldemort arrive and enter he counted to three then stood up and calmly walked in behind the Dark Lord, wand raised. The Dark Lord had had no idea that his tools for immortality had been taken from him, and since he had not yet attempted to kill baby Harry, he was sadly mortal, and utterly killable.

"Avada Kedavra!" He yelled, not pausing to give the monster time to turn towards him. Voldemort had been in the middle of informing his father of his plans. Unfortunately for Harry, he was faster than he looked. Harry, of course, knew it would not be so easy, and had already dodged to the side when the Dark Lord sent his own killing curse in retaliation. "You shouldn't have come here, Tom. I told you, in the end, the tyrant always falls." Harry said, straightening up to face Voldemort for what he would make sure was the last time. "Take Lily and Harry and go, James." He said, sparing a quick glance for the father he never knew.

"Who are you?" James asked, moving towards the door to where Lily and Harry were hidden, looking as though he wanted to stand and fight.

"No one. Take Lily and Harry and leave." Harry replied, his raspy voice a calm mask as he put himself between the Dark Lord and his prey. "Go." He said finally, his back rigid and straight to his father, never allowing him to see his face – or his eyes.

"You think you can defeat me, fool!" Yelled Voldemort, enraged at the use of his birth name, sending a bolt of acid coloured light towards Harry, who blocked the Hex with a downward slash.

James hesitated no longer and bounded into the room where Harry heard his mother, and his baby self, then an explosion, and they were making their escape. Harry paused as he and Voldemort faced each other across the room, his weary, heart sick, exhausted soul and body refusing to bow. His lips stretched into a thin, mocking smile, wrinkles forming at the corners of sunken, care-worn eyes that had seen far too much in the face of a young man aged before his time by pain and sorrow."This has all happened before. I won't let it happen again. Prepare yourself Tom." with that, Harry launched himself into yet another duel with the dark lord. This time, however, he had the advantage of surprise and better strength. And the fearless, expressionless, cold passion of a man who not only has nothing to lose, but wants nothing more than to die right along with his enemies. He was tired, exhausted in a way no human should ever be, right down to the soul, but he would not simply lay down and die. He had been given a chance to make things better, or to at least try, and by god he would do it. His goal had nothing to do with survival; he would die and take Voldemort with him. It was fact.

They dueled furiously, Harry drawing out time until he could gather the strength he needed for one last spell. The cottage collapsed around them as spell after violent spell shook the foundations of Godrick's Hollow, and they finally managed to mutually knock each other down. Rising amidst the slowly settling dust, Harry raised his wand as Voldemort did the same, mirroring his movements. For a moment, furious and somewhat fearful red eyes clashed with calm, determined emerald ones, and the resulting understanding that lit Voldemort's face caused him to hesitate for a fatal second. The realization had come too late. Harry swung his arm out, flicked his wrist and blew them both off the map, pushing out all of his power, all of his energy, into one, big, nameless spell. He used the very life force within him to lash out at Voldemort, who had no defense for a spell that was, in essence, the very antithesis to what he was.

When the dust settled and the battle was over, all that was left was a crater the size of the floor of the cottage, there was no sign of the Dark Lord, nor of the mysterious man who had defeated him, and finally, at long last, there was peace.


End file.
